Facebook photos can be hazardous to your job

Kevin Colvin, an intern at Anglo Irish Bank, learned a valuable lesson recently: Never lie to your bosses, and then post photos about it on your Facebook account.

Mr. Colvin informed his bosses, via e-mail, on October 31st that he had a family emergency in New York, and he had to head there immediately.  He apologized for the short notice, and that should have been that.

However, on November 1st, he, and the entire office, received an email from one of his bosses, a Mr. Paul Davis,  stating:

Kevin,

Thanks for letting us know–hope everything is ok in New York. (cool wand)

Cheers,

PCD

The “wand” Mr. Davis is referring to is the one in this photo.

It seems Mr. Colvin had lied about his family situation, and attended a Halloween party dressed as a fairy, complete with a gold star wand.  He then, like so many people do, posted the picture to his Facebook account.  This is where his bosses found it, and then distributed around the office attached to their email saying that they hoped everything was ok.

TECH.BLORGE.com did contact Anglo Irish Bank for a comment, but the only reply from the receptionist was “We’ve been getting calls about this all day.  We don’t know anything about this, and we can’t comment on it.”

How Mr. Davis came in to possession of the photo has not been made clear.  One can assume he had access to Mr. Colvin’s Facebook account, or perhaps someone showed it to him that also works in the office.  There has also been no mention of what, if any, disciplinary action has been taken against the young intern.  TECH.BLORGE.com did attempt to locate Mr. Colvin’s Facebook account, but were met by repeated “Search is currently unavailable” error messages.

Is the story true?  It would seem so, but no one will verify.  Does it sound true?  Yes.  And if it is true, a valuable lesson can be taken away from it that you should never post anything online that you would not want your bosses, loved ones, or even friends, to find out. 

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